Month 8 (Part 1) – “I can resist anything except temptation” – Oscar Wilde

Was told my last blog was depressing and when queried this with another was told that while it might not be depressing was maybe a little glum! Such are the ups and downs of dating but don’t wish to be either glum or depressing so happy to announce that this week has been much brighter!

It has been an interesting week: thought I had a date booked on Friday with the guy who last stood me up because he had to wait in for a parcel to be delivered. (Asked him what was in the parcel and he said a router so I told him he could think of me each time he used it and sent him a saucy pic!). Well I’d made him wait six weeks or so for another chance and eventually he made it back on the list. When we fixed the date a week ago I said not to let me down again and to confirm by mid-week if it was going ahead. Nothing heard so he’s in the reject file too and blocked on WhatsApp.

That said, another guy with the same forename but from a different town made contact, was very keen to meet and even took time off work to do so. At least with the first one deleted, I won’t send stuff to the wrong person! I met B (51) from Westbrook in a nearby town. We’d chatted on WhatsApp from the beginning as he was only on site 5 for a couple of days as was playing ducks and drakes with someone from work on the same site and didn’t want her to see him there. Apparently gossip is rife. We got on so well we agreed to meet within two days of first making contact but the weather was against us. It absolutely teemed with rain, so much so that he’d have got soaked in seconds walking to our agreed meeting place so I drove closer to pick him up. Windows were steamed up even before I met him and the rain was relentless. We abandoned the idea of a drink in a local hostelry as we’d have looked like drowned rats before we’d made it out of the car park so just drove to the cliffs and had our ‘get to know you’ type chat there and enjoyed each other’s company for a couple of hours.

G (51) of Chelmsford mentioned in Month 4 (part 2) blog got in touch again and said he’d like to meet; likewise S (60) from Wisbech, with whom I had been chatting on and off for over a month, who said he would soon be visiting his son who lives relatively locally.  I’d already arranged a date with R (67) of Twickenham for next week, though now actually think that last week’s blog has irritated him so he may not show, which is a shame, but overall I am feeling optimistic.

Had an audio telephone conversation with J (64) of Ulster, first mentioned in month 4 (part 3) blog. We have messaged fairly regularly since we first met on-line but this had been the first time we had actually heard each other’s voices. He liked my accent and I his. It also amazed me how someone who comes over so shy on-line can so come out of his shell when actually speaking. It seems he’s worried about being kicked off the site if he says the wrong things although I assured him if that were the case, not only I but most of the men I chat to would have been thrown off long ago but he’s not convinced.

I have received a very tempting offer if a certain gent and I hit it off but the question is, do I feel comfortable in accepting it? He is looking for a ‘strong minded lady’.  Incredibly, his main sexual pleasure is to do anything he is told to by ‘his lady’ to please her. He looks at this completely unselfishly as he ‘is programmed‘ by events in his past to do this and he gets his satisfaction from almost venerating [my word as I feel even less comfortable with his] her body in every way, even to the extent that he is happy for her to take lovers whilst he would be utterly faithful. Sounds so hedonistic but having heard his back-story, I actually do believe that this is what he wants but I am struggling to get my head round it. Apart from the fact that I am used to being monogamous, unless I really fell in love with him, I couldn’t help but feel I was using him which does not sit easy with me at all. The whole story has blown my hat off and I can think of little else at the moment. I am trying to keep an open mind until we meet. I think I will even give it a go to see if it helps me make up my mind, but although an offer like his (and I can’t give more details) will only come once in my lifetime, the jury’s out as to whether I feel I can accept it, if indeed he is still offering it to me after we meet. Time will tell…..

Month 3 (part 1) Is chat synonymous with online sex?

Things were beginning to move faster now.  My membership to dating website 1 had come to an end, and I wasn’t having great success with 2 so following the recommendation in a comparative article, I joined another site aimed at more mature people (3).  Actually this is a very similar layout to No 1 and unsurprisingly so as they are owned by the same group. Apparently there is a lot of ‘cross-patching’ between the sites too so there were a lot of familiar profiles on there. Nevertheless, there were some new faces as well. Early on, I got a message from G of Faversham. He asked if I was the lady he had met whilst walking his dog in my area. I was not but we messaged back and forth a few times and he obviously was lonely and just wanted to chat with someone of a similar age. I felt sorry for him so agreed to meet for a drink on the understanding it was just a drink and a chat and no further agenda. He was very nervous as it was his first date and mine with P was still fresh in my mind so I put him at his ease and he went away quite happy, I did too as he was very sweet but not my type and I felt I’d done my good deed.   

Around this time I was getting lots of winks from T of Chatham. He had contacted me lots on website 1 too and I got fed up with asking him to post a photo and put some more details in his profile. In the end, he asked to chat and I agreed, it started out with pleasantries then he said something about liking larger women. He asked if I found that offensive and I said not at all as I know what I am. He then asked my measurements and I said (honestly) that I didn’t have a clue. He then asked my dress size and bra size and I furnished him with the info thinking he was sizing up whether he liked me or not. My friend sitting with me when I told her what he had asked got him right straight away. She said he’s sitting there in a dressing gown with his ’wang’ hanging out , getting off on this.  I didn’t heed her warning, though I acknowledged she could well be right. He then started describing what he would like to do with my breasts…. I let it go on a few minutes because actually he was arousing me but then I felt so ashamed that I just said, ‘I can’t go along with this’ and terminated the chat.

He sent lots more messages over the next 15 minutes asking me to go back on line. I didn’t and I felt very unsettled. The trouble was, although he made me feel a bit dirty, I actually had to admit that I had sort of enjoyed it deep down. To my shame, the next day, I kept looking out for him coming back on line and sure enough there he was. We chatted again but soon things went the way I expected and I was really getting quite excited when I once more felt so guilty that I terminated the conversation. Because I had asked him previously, several times to post a photograph and add more info to his profile without success, I offered to give him an e-mail address to send a photo to. After our second ’chat’ he agreed to send one.  Now seeing his e-mail address I realised that even the first name he was using on site was not real, He said it was his second name. I stewed for a bit then e-mailed him offering to play his game but under my rules. I said we’d have a fantasy on-line date and in this date I would come to his house (as I’d never seen his house he could make up what it was like). All he had to do was decide what he was going to wear for the date. He was so excited. I told him I’d give him an early Christmas present but Christmas only comes once a year and this would be a one-off and it was on the understanding we would never meet.

 

We had trouble arranging a mutually convenient time so in the end he had to wait nearly 24 hours for the date. In the meantime, I kept getting messages and e-mails saying how wonderful it was that he’d found someone on his own wavelength, to which I replied again that he hadn’t and pointed out it was a one-off. He suggested that we should meet to play out the roles for real, to which I reminded him that one of the conditions was that we’d never meet. I also received several messages telling me the effect the anticipation was having on him in quite graphic terms! I had to chastise him for using such explicit language on the on-line forum as I found it quite embarrassing and couldn’t delete it.

I have to say I was quite proud of my planned date I thought I’d used quite a bit of imagination and just planning it gave me quite a lot of pleasure. The morning came to play out the fantasy. He was wound tighter than a spring but I was actually very focused on getting the best result for him and quite cold about it all but I made myself sound very turned on and passionate. Well, I’m afraid the date has to be censored but just to say at the end of it when he had climaxed and was completely spent he said ‘Oh, this is love’ and I replied ‘No, this is sex’. He asked, ‘But you did enjoy it?’ and I said ‘I really enjoyed the planning of it, but was I aroused? Actually, not at all.’ This was absolutely true. He muttered he was late for something and had to go. He didn’t appear on line all the next day or most of the day after that and I started to feel a bit guilty in case I’d been too hard on him. I sent a message saying I was sorry if I’d hurt him but he needed to learn a lesson and perhaps he should live in the real world rather than a cyber one. Eventually he made contact saying it ‘felt very empty afterwards and he felt used’. I replied thus:

‘Although I wanted you to enjoy it, as you say it is not nice to feel used, but that is what ladies you chat to in a sexually explicit way are likely to feel. You post no photos and put very little on your profile then engage in online sex. I don’t feel that way over our ‘fantasy date’ as I suggested it but I did on the two previous occasions when we chatted, even though you excited me at the time. I’m strong and not vulnerable and lonely but many people of both sexes on this site are and it is very disappointing to be made to feel desirable only to find out they are a means to an end. Just think about the consequences now you have felt that for yourself………. I feel a bit sorry for you in that you must lack self-confidence to behave as you are under some anonymity, but that is no excuse to abuse other vulnerable people. You might not have thought that is what you were doing but maybe now you will understand.’
I also suggested if he wanted to play those games, he should register on the ‘Naughty’ version of the site when it is what people expect.

With hindsight, having had a lot more experience of on-line sex on other sites, I think maybe I was a bit hard on him but I still believe it is a question of not picking on people one thinks is desperate for love or even attention.  I also think that this particular site, aimed specifically at older folk was the wrong place to be playing those games. I can be a hard woman!

Month 2: Stalkers

After the disappointment of L from Cheapside, and also feeling rather foolish, I re-instated my membership of dating website 1 (when I suspended it they had given me another month free-of-charge and I’m never one to miss a bargain) and started all over. About this time I also decided that I should remove my wedding ring. I             suppose I have used it as a symbol that I am not available over the past years but seemed inappropriate now.

It is as well that from the start of this exercise, I have kept ‘files’ on anyone I talk to at all seriously. Maybe it is that old habits die hard but there were several advantages. For one thing it helped me to remember who was who and what had been said, it also meant I didn’t have to keep finding their profiles on the website and, as one knows every time someone visits your profile, the person concerned needn’t be aware when I was having a sneaky peek to remind myself who they were etc. However, they proved to have a more important use. These are just Word documents on which I copy the web profile, any pictures and copies of any significant e-mails or messages received added to the bottom. Amongst some of the other winks and expressions of interest, out of the blue I got an e-mail from Jack. ‘Thanks for sending me your email id, i must Confess you are very beautiful and i hope we can become best of friends, and hopefully take things to a new level, like i told you i am new to online dating and you are the first lady i am speaking with and i also hope you would be my last.’

The e-mail continued in the same vein and had a couple of nice pictures attached but by now I was very used to L’s style of writing and besides, in my files I knew I hadn’t spoken to a Jack and also knew who I had given this special e-mail address to. He got a short shrift e-mail back and I blocked him. One final thought on L. He hadn’t asked for any money so where was the scam? I am sure in my own mind he was mailing from abroad. I think he wanted me to meet him at the airport and take him to a hotel in the hopes I would now be so infatuated, that he would be able to persuade me to help him get a visa or whatever. I don’t know what he thought I would think when my handsome actor didn’t arrive, who knows? As I say, just a theory but the only logical one I can come up with.

Another strong suit came from J of Bray but by now, if I couldn’t find the photos on the internet myself, using the method my daughter had taught me, I sent them on to her as she is much better at it than I am. This guy hadn’t posted a photo but agreed to send some by e-mail, I supposed because there are fewer people who might catch you out. Within his long e-mails he used two expressions which stuck in my mind. The photos turned out to be of some millionaire publisher (no wonder he said he lived in Bray with an income of over £100K – earnings like that are always a danger sign!)

Another attractive individual was J from Walderslade but again his lifestyle seemed too good to believe but I try to be open-minded whilst cautious so we e-mailed and in his first long missive he used the phrases: ‘gentleman who lost my ex wife from bloody cancer’ and ‘but I am looking for my soul mate someone who has the locks to fit my keys, and the keys to fit my locks.’ And they immediately rang a bell. Back to my trusty files and there they were, sure enough. Sloppy copy and paste job , I thought!

I realise that whether I was being stalked by one man or two, I needed to get off the first site at the end of the month but before that I had joined Dating website 2, a bit more expensive but certainly more upmarket. It was not as good for me in that anyone I took a fancy to was either already seeing someone else or didn’t reciprocate my interest but I did get my first date out of it.

P of Croydon also hadn’t posted a photo which made me cautious but his profile looked interesting. I asked for a photo and he said he’d text me one if I wanted. I agreed and gave him my mobile number and a very nice photo was sent and it all checked out ok! He didn’t much like texting so asked if we could talk on the phone. As he already had my number for the photo I agreed and found he had a lovely Irish accent (not unexpected as that was in his profile). In conversation I asked what his former profession had been and he said he had been a GP and then the penny dropped why no photo, I guess the same would apply to teachers, lecturers, consultants etc. This is now why I don’t assume I know why.

We agreed to meet in London for a coffee as I would be in town that day anyway and I was quite excited as I really thought we could be a match. Sadly when we met, it appeared his photo could have been 10 years out of date but I might have forgiven him that if he hadn’t been so boring. The feeling was obviously mutual as we parted politely with no plans for a future meet. It was good to have broken my duck though.

Month 1: Fraud

Whenever you are new to a site, I now know you get a lot of looks at your profile. Existing members who fit the criteria you have set re age range and distance from where you live are notified so most will at least give it a glance. I was flattered I got quite a lot of winks and messages straight away and of course I then looked at their profiles to see if it was reciprocal. One guy (L from Cheapside) winked on the very first day I was on the site and I thought his photo was very attractive and his profile was interesting. I didn’t understand the system at that point so I just noted it and only responded to those who actually sent messages. A week later I got a second wink from the same fellow. He then started messaging on line, he said he was from Paris but living and working in London (Cheapside –didn’t know anyone lived in Cheapside?). He wrote very flattering messages which I have to say I responded to positively then towards the end of the fourth message he wrote ‘ You are my life – my very life. Never imagine your hope approximates what you are to me. Beautiful, precious little baby – hurry up the sun! Make the days shorter till we meet.  Also what is the best number to reach you’

I responded ‘Whoah! Slow down, we haven’t even chatted yet, we’re a long way from knowing whether we’re a match but I’d like to be friends for now.’

The messages kept coming, there were inconsistencies in what he was telling me about his family and what had written in his profile but I suppose I wanted to believe he was genuine. He even had said his hair colour was brown, when it was obviously grey in the photographs. I put it down to pressing the wrong choice button in multiple choice answers and language. He asked if we could Skype. At first I was sceptical especially as my Skype user name includes my surname – should have set up a new account – but eventually I agreed. Funny, but the camera on his computer was faulty, he could see me but I couldn’t see him. We did talk on audio and he certainly sounded French to me.

He started talking about a business trip to Dubai so I told him he’d better find a computer there with a working camera. I did think it odd that e-mails from him often arrived around 4am but he said he couldn’t sleep so that’s when he wrote them. He asked if, when he returned from Dubai, I would meet him at Heathrow and could I book a hotel room. I actually genuinely wasn’t available on the day the flight was due in and he said he’d change it to a day when I was.

I said if we were going to any hotel it could be in London as he was [supposed to be] living in the city. I said if he chose a hotel and booked a room, I would book my own room in the same hotel and we’d just have dinner and see how things went. He started getting very angry. He’d already been cross because he said he’d come off the dating–site since talking to me but that I was still on it and talking to other men, so I suspended my membership, now this. What had started out being fun was now getting stressful and controlling.

Luckily my daughter is very internet savvy and I was going round to see her anyway. I told her all about it and she reverse–imaged the photographs he had posted on the net and some he’d sent to me by e-mail. (He even phoned me whilst I was with her to say he’d sent his flight details to me by e-mail but by this time I was becoming aware that he was definitely a fraud so I just told him I couldn’t talk then but would e-mail him later). The photos turned out to be of an actor and he had stolen them from his website and another casting website. I wrote a last email to ‘L from Cheapside’ showing the proof of his deceit. With hindsight I shouldn’t have done that, it just made him wiser.   I not only reported him to the dating website, even though his profile was now removed – did he take his profile off or did the site remove him? I don’t know. I also wrote to the actor concerned and told him his images were being fraudulently used and told him the story. He was so kind and said how sorry he was that it was his photos that had attracted me in the first place. He did say that he wasn’t sure which he was more upset about, that his photos had been fraudulently used or that the guy had described himself as 62 and the actor is only 48!  I hoped that was the last I had heard from L but sadly not.